Reply #10: depends on what you believe in

[Wetzelbill]

A person who is a Realist in terms of foreign policy will look at the power aspects of it all. Take a guy like Brent Scowcroft the National Security Advisor under Poppy Bush. He might say something like Iraq was a bad idea, but we also need to account for our interests there. So keeping a force in Kurdish territory to look after our needs and maybe offering air support to the Iraqi military once we pull our ground forces out would be a feasible alternative for him. He is also one of those guys who traditionally advocated having a force presence in the region by utilizing our naval assets and not necessarily building bases. However that changed after Gulf War 1, when we kept troops in Saudi Arabia to look after our oil interests there and in Kuwait. That was definitely a mistake, because it helped launch bin Laden's terrorist career.

Some people may be of more of a social constructivist position. Which means that certain values such as human rights, morality and the use of international institutions shape their views on foreign policy. For them invading Iraq, in and of itself, was out of the question. It was foolish and immoral. They would be inclined to believe that because we were misled into this war, our troops are in danger for no valid reason, and their continued presence in Iraq is for neo-liberal reasons and neo-conservative fantasy. So then the idea of keeping troops in Kurdish territory means still is a moral problem because they are not safely home and they are still looking after the interests of Halliburton etc. Also, because the Kurds are historically repressed, they would also be of the mindset that they don't need U.S. troops there and we should just leave them alone and let them get the chance to flourish without having to deal with the problems our military presence could or would create.

Also, people who believe in that type of morality also would be more opposed to keeping our troops in that region by a naval presence, because they are still protecting U.S. energy interests. This conflicts with the view of Human Rights as a fundemental tenet of foreign policy. Why? Because as long as we protect our oil interests we are protecting repressive regimes such as Saudi Arabia. We are protecting a repressive oligarchical elite in the Middle East by continuing with the status quo, so those that have this view would also argue for structural change in our domestic energy policies too. It all ties in.

So as far as those two view go you have two views, the Realist power politic view and the Social Constructivist human rights and morality view, who agree that Iraq was a bad idea and we need to get our troops out, except they don't agree on what to do with their redeployment. That's because they have different concepts of how foreign policy should work.

Then you have the more hard-line Neo-Conservative or Vulcan view. They believe we should create permanent bases in Iraq and use our troops for constabulary duties as we promote democracy and expand our economic interests in the region. They simply don't want to fully leave and are not planning on doing so.

They all conflict with each other in some way.

Now most people on DU are activist minded. Most of us believe more in the Social Constructivist type view, so for various reasons, mainly due to human rights and morality issues, you will find many people anti-privatization and anti-war. You'll also find many of us are skeptical of most foreign policy status quo ideas. So, many ideas for us DUers are out of the question anyway. Then from their everybody has various activist minded type objections.

From a governmental standpoint you have lots of bureaucratic and indoctrinal problems. Making a major policy change, especially when you have an administration that is so far out of touch with reality is almost impossible. With regards to Iraq, everybody has an opinion, some are good, a lot are very bad. Voices of reason get lost in the wilderness. This administration shuts nearly everybody out too. That doesn't help by any means. The biggest factor right now, might be the midterm elections. That could trump everything. So you might see troop levels get pared down during that time. Then I would say the administration would build that back up. But, who knows what they will do with those troops in the meantime. Where will they be redeployed to? Will public pressure keep them redeployed? It's just way too complex to really know.